When they first got married in 2008, Deacon and Kim Hayes were carried away by their holiday shopping. With two incomes from their sales and teaching jobs, the Arizona couple wasn’t worried about finances — which is how they ended up with holiday debt that took months to pay off.
“When you are in the middle class, you get more comfortable,” Deacon Hayes said. “You feel like, ‘I make enough money. I should be able to afford that.’ ”
But if a recent study proves true, it will take middle-income families like the Hayeses longer than lower-income families to pay off their holiday debt this year.
Households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 annually will take an average of 2.6 months to pay off holiday debt, according to the study, conducted by Harris Interactive Inc., a market research company. Lower-income households that make below $50,000 will take an average of two months to pay off their holiday debt. (Households that make over $100,000 will need only one credit card statement to shed the debt.)
This surprised Matthew Ong, a retail analyst at the consumer finance site NerdWallet, and revealed the precarious financial position of many families, even as the economy improves, he said. (The study focused on Black Friday deals but also looked at post-holiday season debt.) Middle-class families may have higher credit limits, but that doesn’t mean they have a lot more money to work with, Ong said. |
